Docker Commands Cheat Sheet

Docker’s purpose is to build and manage compute images and to launch them in a container. So, the most useful commands do and expose this information.

Here’s a cheat sheet on the top Docker commands to know and use.

(This is part of our Docker Guide. Use the right-hand menu to navigate.)

Commands docker-compose start docker-compose stop docker-compose pause docker-compose unpause docker-compose ps docker-compose up docker-compose down Reference Building web: # build from Dockerfile build:. Args: # Add build arguments APPHOME: app # build from custom Dockerfile build: context:./dir dockerfile: Dockerfile.dev. Docker Commands Cheat Sheet How is this helpful? Evaluating docker for a future log management or monitoring project? This Docker cheat sheet covers all you need to know from creating and starting a container in one operation to executing commands in containers, Docker. Today, we're presenting our Docker Commands Cheat Sheet — a one-page guide to using Docker that includes a glossary of common terms, useful one-liners, cleanup commands, machine commands, compose syntax and instructions on how to interact with a container. If you want to grab a copy, head to the bottom of the page and download it today. This tutorial brings you a docker command cheat list in a printable A4 size and also in a pdf format for your quick reference. Please keep us posted if you need us to add more commands. Commands are categorized in 7 sections as listed below. Contents of Docker Cheat sheet. Starting and Stopping; 1.3. Docker commands cheat sheet. Posted on June 13, 2020 June 13, 2020 by devops81. CHECKING LOGS COMMANDS BUILD COMMANDS SHARE COMMANDS RUN COMMANDS DOCKER.

Images and containers

The docker command line interface follows this pattern:
docker <COMMAND>

The docker images and container commands grant access to the images and containers. From here, you are permitted to do something with them, hence:

There are:

is lists the resources.
cp copies files/folders between the container and the local file system.
create creates new container.
diff inspects changes to files or directories in a running container.
logs fetches the logs of a container.
pause pauses all processes within one or more containers.
rename renames a container.
run runs a new command in a container.
start starts one or more stopped containers.
stop stops one or more running containers.
stats displays a livestream of containers resource usage statistics.
top displays the running processes of a container.

View resources with ls

From the container ls command, the container id can be accessed (first column).

Control timing with start, stop, restart, prune

start starts one or more stopped containers.
stop stops one or more running containers.
restart restarts one or more containers.
prune (the best one!) removes all stopped containers.

Name a container

Docker Swarm Commands Cheat Sheet

View vital information: Inspect, stats, top

stats displays a live stream of container(s) resource usage statistics

Docker Run Commands Cheat Sheet

top displays the running processes of a container:

inspect displays detailed information on one or more containers. With inspect, a JSON is returned detailing the name and states and more of a container.

Additional resources

For more on this topic, there’s always the Docker documentation, the BMC DevOps Blog, and these articles:

This is just a cheat sheet of commands and terminology for Docker and ASP.NET Core; it contains commands that you can find in the original cheat sheet, plus a Dockerfile for ASP.NET Core and a quick guide on how to created one from Visual Studio. Hopefully, both developers that are in the process of getting into the containerize world with Docker and developers that are already in but need a quick recap will find it useful.

Basic terminology

Term	Short explanation
Docker	Docker is a set of platform as a service products that uses OS-level virtualization to deliver software in packages called containers. Download Docker for Windows here.
Image	An image, or more correct, a Docker container image is a lightweight, standalone, executable package of software that includes everything needed to run an application: code, runtime, system tools, system libraries and settings.
Container	A container image becomes a container at runtime when they run on Docker Engine
Docker Engine	Docker Engine is a container runtime that runs on various Linux (CentOS, Debian, Fedora, Oracle Linux, RHEL, SUSE, and Ubuntu) and Windows Server operating systems…
Docker Hub	Docker Hub is a service provided by Docker for finding and sharing container images with your team.
Dockerfile	A `Dockerfile` is a text document that contains all the commands a user could call on the command line to assemble an image.

Read more information about Docker Container Images and Docker Containers here.

Basic commands

Follows, a list of basic commands that you will regularly need. Run them using command line from the root of your application – where the Dockerfile should exists.

Term	Short explanation
`docker pull`	Retrieve an image from a registry. If you specify only the repository name, Docker will download the image tagged latest from that repository on Docker Hub. e.g. `docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/aspnet:3.1` pulls the 3.1 runtime, where `docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk` pulls the latest .NET Core SDK.
`docker build`	Create a new image by running a Dockerfile. User the -t flag to specify the name of the new image and don’t forget the `.` (build context for the source files for the `COPY` command) e.g. `docker build -t image.name.for.my.app:v1 .`
`docker image list`	After pulling an image, view the images in your local registry with the `docker image list` command.
`docker ps`	View active containers. Use the `-a` flag to view all. e.g. `docker ps -a`
`docker run`	Run an image – it will become a container. Specify the option `-p` for port mapping (left hand side local port, right hand side port exposed by docker) and `-d` to run it as a background service. Speficy the `--name` option to set the name of the container. e.g. `docker run -p 8080:80 -d --name container.name image.name.for.my.app`
`docker stop`	Stop an active container by specifying the container ID. Get that with the `docker ps` command e.g. `docker stop elegant_ramanujan`
`docker start`	Restart a stopped container. e.g. `docker start elegant_ramanujan`
`docker container rm`	Remove a stopped container. Add the `-f` flag to force remove a running container (not a graceful shutdown) e.g. `docker container rm -f elegant_ramanujan`
`docker image rm`	Remove an image. There is no force flag here, all containers using this image must be stopped. e.g. `docker image rm mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/samples:aspnetapp`

A `Dockerfile` sample

Living in the root of the application, a Dockerfile is just a plain text file; you can either use the following command to create it in Windows, or anyway you like: copy NUL Dockerfile. The sample below contains everything necessary to build and run an image. Comments above each command attempt to provide a bit of clarity:

A cheat with Microsoft Visual Studio

If it happens to have a Visual Studio around, just right click on your main project, select ‘Add’ and then ‘Docker Support…’:

Dockerfile Commands